Tensions in Germany’s coalition government caused by Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s reluctance to send heavy weapons to Ukraine threaten to reach breaking point this week in a parliamentary vote.
Friedrich Merz, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) opposition leader, said he plans to force a vote on a motion calling for “immediate” deliveries of heavy weapons, including tanks.
Junior coalition partners are expected to oppose Mr Scholz.
Mr Merz described how “an open dispute is raging in the federal government” and accused Mr Scholz of failing to come clean on his position.
“He covers up, he keeps silent, he only tells half the truth,” Mr Merz said. “Criticism abroad is growing, and Germany is increasingly isolated.”
Saskia Esken, the co-leader of Scholz's Social Democrats (SDP), addressed the divisions on Monday by calling on former chancellor Gerhard Schroder to quit the party because of his ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
She said it was time to stop looking at Mr Schroder as a former chancellor and see him as a businessman.
“We called on Gerhard Schroder to step down from Russian companies,” she said on DLF public radio on Monday.
“Sadly, he didn't follow that advice. Schroder has worked for years as a businessman, and we should stop seeing him as an elder statesman, as a former chancellor,” she said, adding that he should quit the party.
On February 27, three days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Mr Scholz bowed to domestic and international pressure and announced a departure from defence policy and supply arms to Ukraine.
But he has since shown little appetite to follow through on his pledge.
Batches of arms shipped from Germany, with Europe’s largest economy, have been smaller than packages sent by smaller Nato allies such as Estonia and the Czech Republic.
Among the Nato and G7 members Germany has, since the beginning of the invasion, stood out for its reluctance to supply Ukraine with arms.
Mr Scholz’s government has repeatedly delayed sending heavy weapons, such as Marder armoured personnel carriers, to Ukraine.
The government has put forward reasons for ministers’ reluctance, saying it would take too long to train Ukrainians in the use of western weapons and it was trying to avert a nuclear war.
Ukraine rejected the claim that Nato equipment would be useless because its troops would need months of training in how to use it.
Senior sources in junior coalition partners the Greens and the Free Democrats have called on Mr Scholz to rethink his views.
The Greens’ Annalena Baerbock, Germany's Foreign Minister, has said: “Ukraine needs heavy weapons”.
However, she said that vehicles like Leopard tanks and the Marder “just don’t work from scratch”.
Speaking during a visit to Tallinn, Estonia, last week, Mr Baerbock said Germany was willing to pay for the training but that countries in the former Soviet sphere of influence were better placed to deliver weapons from their own inventories right now.
A spokesman for the government said on Monday said that Germany will soon decide on whether to approve the delivery of 100 old Marder infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine. If approved, it would be the first German heavy weapons shipment to Kyiv.
German defence company Rheinmetall has requested approval to export the vehicles to Ukraine, a source told Reuters on Monday, planning to restore them before shipping.
The firm’s move could force Mr Scholz to take a clear position on whether heavy weapons can be sent directly from Germany to Ukraine because the Marder deal requires approval from the national security council, which is chaired by the chancellor.
His reluctance risks undermining Germany’s image as a reliable ally, according to Anton Hofreiter, a veteran Green MP who chairs parliament’s Europe committee.
“The problem is in the chancellery,” Mr Hofreiter told RTL television last week. “We must now finally begin supplying Ukraine with what it needs — and that includes heavy weapons.”
Ukraine war: latest pictures
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UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres visits Borodyanka, near Kyiv, where Russian forces are accused of killing civilians. AFP -
Children play in the wreckage of a Russian armoured vehicle in Lukashivka, Chernihiv region, northern Ukraine. The village has been retaken by Ukrainian forces. EPA -
A cyclist passes a destroyed building in Derhachi village, near besieged city Kharkiv, in north-eastern Ukraine. AFP -
Burnt-out wreckage of a tank in Kolychivka village, Chernihiv region, northern Ukraine. EPA -
A Ukrainian flag flies in a park in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine. A rocket attack on the city railway station earlier in April killed at least 50 people. AFP -
Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses a meeting of MPs in St Petersburg. EPA -
Youngsters Faddei and Oleksandr play in front of a church damaged during Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in the Chernihiv region. Reuters -
A demonstrator turns emotional as she attends a rally in Kyiv demanding a humanitarian corridor to rescue civilians from Mariupol. Reuters -
A Ukrainian Sukhoi Su-25 releases decoy flares as it provides air support to Ukrainian ground forces near central city of Yampil. AFP -
An officer from National Guard of Ukraine surveys weapons left behind by Russian troops in Chernobyl. AFP -
Mr Putin attends a meeting with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Moscow. Reuters -
Members of a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency carry equipment as they arrive at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, in Chernobyl, Ukraine. AP -
Ukrainian troops fire rockets from the city of Popasna, near Luhansk. EPA -
Lithuanian musician Darius Mazintas plays a piano in front of the Central House of Culture destroyed during Russia's invasion, in the town of Irpin, outside Kyiv. Reuters -
Ukrainian refugees Julia, second left, 32, and Miroslava, left, 11, walk away with relatives who received them after they crossed into Poland from Ukraine at the Dorohusk border. AFP -
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov meets Mr Guterres in Moscow. AFP -
US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Mark Milley, left, US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, second left, and Ukrainian Minister of Defence Oleksii Reznikov, right, attend the Ukraine Security Consultative Group meeting at Ramstein airbase in Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany. Getty Images -
Smoke rises from an oil terminal hit by fire in Bryansk, Russia. AP -
People take pictures by the wreckage of a Russian military vehicle, in the village of Rusaniv, Kyiv region. Reuters -
Smoke rises above the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant amid fighting in Mariupol, Ukraine. Reuters -
People carry a large Ukrainian flag as they attend a rally to mark the 77th anniversary of Liberation Day in Milan, Italy. The day remembers Italians who fought against the Nazis and Mussolini's troops during the Second World War. EPA -
A Ukrainian soldier looks at a Russian ballistic missile's booster stage that fell in a field in Bohodarove, eastern Ukraine. AFP -
People watch as a residential building burns after Russian bombardment in Kharkiv, Ukraine. AP -
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin. Reuters -
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the Orthodox Easter service at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. EPA -
A young girl in front of people carrying a huge Ukrainian flag during a peaceful demonstration entitled 'Solidarity with Ukraine' in Krakow, Poland. Reuters -
A boy stands next to a wrecked vehicle in front of an apartment damaged during the conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol. Reuters -
This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows damage at the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, Ukraine. AP -
A Ukrainian man rides in front of a destroyed building in Kharkiv which had been shelled by the Russians. EPA -
A Ukrainian Territorial Defence fighter in a shelter with an Easter Cake near Kharkiv. Ukrainians mark Orthodox Easter today. EPA -
Residents receive Easter cakes and apples handed out by pro-Russian troops on Easter Day at the Svyato-Troitsky Church in the southern port city of Mariupol. Reuters -
A woman photographs the scene of yesterday's shelling in the southern Ukraine city of Odesa. Eight people were killed, including a three-month child, and about 20 were wounded. EPA -
A military chaplain blesses Ukrainian soldiers on the occasion of Orthodox Easter not far from the city of Izyum in Kharkiv. EPA -
An internally displaced man walks with dogs in the Palace of Culture, which was damaged by shelling in Rubizhne, eastern Ukraine. AFP -
Tulips grow next to a building destroyed by shelling in Rubizhne. AFP -
Internally displaced people wait to receive food inside a factory that has been turned into a shelter, in Severodonetsk. AFP -
Members of the Ukrainian Red Cross carry a woman, 92, to an ambulance from a bunker at a factory in Severodonetsk. AFP -
Ambulance workers move an injured Ukrainian serviceman to a hospital in Donetsk. AP -
A woman sits inside a subway station that has been turned into a shelter, on the outskirts of second largest Ukrainian city, Kharkiv. AFP -
Residents shelter in a subway station in Kharkiv. AFP -
Anastasiya Kryvoho attends a candlelight vigil for Ukraine on the Orthodox Holy Saturday, in Toronto, Canada. Reuters -
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses a press conference with international media in an underground metro station in Kyiv. AFP -
Firefighters work at the scene of a fire after shelling in Kharkiv, Ukraine. EPA -
A family from Myrne, a town occupied by Russian forces, wait to register with police at an evacuation point for people fleeing from Mariupol, Melitopol and surrounding towns. Getty Images -
Oleksandr, 25, meets his parents Olga, 49, and Oleksandr, 50, who fled from the Russian-occupied village of Lyubimivka, at the evacuation point in Zaporizhzhia. EPA -
Residents walk near a damaged military vehicle in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces in Mariupol. AP -
A heavily damaged apartment building in Horenka. Getty Images -
Residents wrapped in blankets stand near their houses damaged by Russian shelling in Odesa. AP -
A Ukrainian flag is installed on top of a gob pile in Lysychans, eastern Ukraine. AFP -
A Ukrainian soldier rests at a checkpoint in Severodonetsk. AFP
